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“I was saying,” she remarked presently,
“that I would not have you think that I do not
appreciate the suffering in which you were plunged
by the haste you found necessary in the wedding of
your jeune fille.”

But I was on my guard. “At least, I may
thank you for your sympathy, Madam!” I replied.

“Yet in time,” she went on, gone reflective
the next instant, “you will see how very unimportant
is all this turmoil of love and marriage.”

“Indeed, there is, as you say, something of
a turmoil regarding them in our institutions as they
are at present formed.”

“Because the average of humanity thinks so little.
Most of us judge life from its emotions. We do
not search the depths.”

“If I could oblige Madam by abolishing society
and home and humanity, I should be very glad—­because,
of course, that is what Madam means!”

“At any cost,” she mused, “that
torture of life must be passed on to coming generations
for their unhappiness, their grief, their misery.
I presume it was necessary that there should be this
plan of the general blindness and intensity of passion.”

“Yes, if, indeed, it be not the most important
thing in the world for us to marry, at least it is
important that we should think so. Madam is philosopher
this morning,” I said, smiling.

She hardly heard me. “To continue the crucifixion
of the soul, to continue the misapprehensions, the
debasings of contact with human life—­yes,
I suppose one must pay all that for the sake of the
gaining of a purpose. Yet there are those who
would endure much for the sake of principle, Monsieur.
Some such souls are born, do you not think?”

“Yes, Sphinx souls, extraordinary, impossible
for the average of us to understand.”

“That torch of life!” she mused.
“See! It was only that which you
were so eager to pass on to another generation!
That was why you were so mad to hasten to the side
of that woman. Whereas,” she mused still,
“it were so much grander and so much nobler
to pass on the torch of a principle as well!”

“I do not understand.”

“The general business of offspring goes on unceasingly
in all the nations,” she resumed frankly.
“There will be children, whether or not you
and I ever find some one wherewith to mate in the compromise
which folk call wedlock. But principles—­ah!
my friend, who is to give those to others who follow
us? What rare and splendid wedlock brings forth
that manner of offspring?”

“Madam, in the circumstances,” said I,
“I should be happy to serve you more omelet.”

She shook her head as though endeavoring to dismiss
something from her mind.

“Do not philosophize with me,” I said.
“I am already distracted by the puzzle you offer
to me. You are so young and beautiful, so fair
in your judgment, so kind—­”

“In turn, I ask you not to follow that,”
she remarked coldly. “Let us talk of what
you call, I think, business.”